HD didn't detect in Windows, but shows up in BIOS

Had an incident the other day where we had to help a client rebuild their SQL server after their current one died. They had no back-ups, which wasn't our fault of course. It was basically a PC with a cheap MB, and the MB died.

Anyways, I had a spare, new Lenovo Server that was just perfect for the job. Already had 2008 Server installed, and we *thought* it would be an easy case to just pop the old HD in the box and let their SQL tech migrate the data he needed.

However, even though their older SATA drive detected just fine in the BIOS it refused to show up in disk management in Windows. Tried every combination including plugging it into the DVD SATA port on the MB to no avail. Showed up in the bios, but not disk manager in windows.

I ended up slaving the drive to an even older PC, and using an external drive to move the data. Mission accomplished, but I'm still a bit ticked off as to why simply slaving it didn't work.

Only thing I can think of is the server SATA config in the BIOS was set to RAID --vs-- AHCI. Given it came from the factory this way, and RAID was running off a different controller I saw no reason to change it. Flipping it to AHCI would have likely BSOD'd the box, but I would have liked to try it.

The box is deployed and the offending HD has been stored, so there's no way to tell. I'll remember your suggestion though because I'm sure I'll get another chance in the future {sigh}

Quote:

Generally Win7/8 and Server 2008R2 / 2012 can handle a non-AHCI-->AHCI move with no issues.

Last night I stopped by the shop, and tried this with an identical server we were setting up for another client running 2008. Went into the BIOS and flipped it from RAID to AHCI, and the box BSOD'd.

I know there's a registry hack you can do to Win7 to get around this, but on a production server I'd rather not resort to this stuff. The bigger question though is if any future servers should be built in AHCI mode -vs- RAID just for the potential of future flexibility. Again, we're not using the cheapy SATA RAID anyways.

A more important question is if the drive detect glitch above was an issue with Lenovo, or Win8.